


Seven Days A Week

by trollmela



Category: Batman - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-02
Updated: 2012-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 21:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5885602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trollmela/pseuds/trollmela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.” That’s what Tony says. In fact, there are a lot more sides to Tony Stark than those. Sometimes, Steve gets the impression that he’s living with a different man every day of the week.</p><p>(Batman crossover only in chapter 4)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Genius

Steve has an override code for the lab. Pepper gave it to him a couple of weeks after they all moved into the Stark Mansion, when he and Tony were still at each other’s throats regularly.

They haven’t had a fight in two weeks, which is pretty good. Still, after not seeing Tony for three days straight, he has to concede that it’s time to go down to the lab and see whether their host is still alive.

He is. The door to the lab is open, so this time at least he doesn’t have to use his (Pepper’s) fancy override code but only the regular one.

“You haven’t been upstairs in three days,” Steve comments.

“So?” Stark replies, not looking up from his soldering iron.

“Have you eaten? Showered? Slept?”

Looking at the man, the answer to all three of those questions had to be ‘no’.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, mother hen,” Stark says absently, still entirely focused on the thin wires between his fingers. “I’ll be up once I’m done.”

Steve sighs and decides to call it a lost cause. Later, he’ll learn the subtle signs of when it really _is_ a lost cause, and when and how he can get Tony to leave his hideout.


	2. Billionaire

“What the hell are you wearing?”

To Tony it’s casual, to Steve just plain rude. The small earnings he had during the war may have accumulated to an impressive sum – to him at least – but he wasn’t the type to spend it on himself.

Unlike Tony. If the price doesn’t have at least three zeros attached to the back, it’s not worth it to him, and Steve will never get that. Just like Stark will never get the life Steve led in Brooklyn as a child, when his mother had had to give her all to make ends meet.

Tony throws money around like it’s nothing. He’s lost more because of scandals hitting SI stocks than Steve could ever dream about. And what he has, he puts into cars, restaurants, clubs, alcohol, clothes, expensive equipment even if he only needs it for a week, and whatever else catches his fancy.

He spends it on his friends as well, sometimes without even asking. He doesn’t understand that sometimes an ‘I wish I had…’ wasn’t a request that Tony get it for them. Steve doesn’t think Tony understands that when you’re friends with someone, it’s not because of their money. He mentions as much once. Tony, at the time, is drunk – unsurprisingly, but he doesn’t slur his words yet.

“Not in my experience. And SHIELD’s fancy weapons certainly don’t come from Goodwill.”

At the time, Steve is just irritated. Later, when he remembers those words again, he just feels sad.


	3. Playboy

Steve knew what kind of man Tony Stark was the moment he met him. Anyone who had something to say about Stark – that is everyone – said the same thing. It would take Steve a while to learn that they were all wrong.

It was a shock the first time Tony called him “dear” or “love” or, the worst, “baby blues.” The pet names were usually accompanied by a flirtatious wink. Back in his time, it would have been inconceivable. But it’s not the only change Steve has to get used to.

Again, the tabloids knew it all: every relationship, one-night stand and a couple of rumored ones of Tony Stark were reported on in great detail; sex-tapes were evaluated for location, performance, co-stars and imagination. Women – and men – seemed to fall for him by the dozen.

Pepper claimed that the number had dropped _significantly_ since his being held prisoner in Afghanistan. Steve wasn’t sure he wanted to – or even could – imagine how promiscuous Tony had been before. Or perhaps he was imagining things: he had never seen Stark actually take anyone home.


	4. Philanthropist

It seems like almost every week there’s a fundraising gala Tony gets invited to. Some of them are his own charities, most notably the foundation named after his mother, but Tony gives money to others as well.

Tony was able to convince Steve to go with him to one exactly once. Captain America simply didn’t like the attention, the photographs, the glamour. He wonders why some people have to show off that they’re donating money and can’t shut up about it. That’s the type most people at these charity events fall under.

Usually, Stark brings Pepper, Rhodey or he goes alone. Knowing Tony, he either thought Steve needed to get out, or he wanted entertainment for himself, the latter being the most likely. Tony doesn’t make a big deal of the money he spends for a good cause. But he likes being in the center and he has the attention span of a three-year-old, so he decides that taking Steve to a fundraising event is a good idea.

What happens is that a lot of women throw themselves at both Tony and Steve, Stark gets drunk at the bar and Steve needs to help him to the car, where he promptly falls asleep on Steve’s shoulder.


	5. Businessman

The Economist calls it the biggest project in America’s business world since the financial crisis. The gossip magazines love them and print a picture of Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne with their arms casually over each others’ shoulders and identical grins plastered on their faces over a double page.

According to everyone who has an opinion – and a lot of people do – Tony Stark is a great businessman. He may be erratic, arrogant and annoying, but he’s very good at accumulating money and he’s a great inventor (genius) which, in the end, also usually leads to money.

When stock prices dropped after Stark’s press conference that SI wasn’t going to work in the weapons industry anymore, everyone had called him insane for jumping off his best race horse. But Stark had insisted, diversified and invested, and a mere year later, stock prices had been back as good as they had ever been, better even.

Steve doesn’t understand enough about money, stock markets and the economy to make his own judgment, but, according to Clint anyway, Forbes is a pretty good indicator and Stark is on their list of billionaires every time (has even overtaken Wayne recently by three billion) as well as on their list of The World’s Most Powerful People (somewhere blow the US President and the German chancellor, but above the British Prime Minister, which is frankly terrifying).

And speaking of Wayne: the other man comes to the mansion the night after the picture was taken, making Steve frown with disapproval. The mansion is the Avenger’s head quarters and as such not open to just anyone. The only reason he doesn’t say anything is that the mansion is still Stark’s, so it’s not his place. He goes to the gym instead.

He sees them at the bar in the living room on his way back, Tony sipping scotch and Wayne something Steve doesn’t recognize from the distance. He notes how close they’re standing, the space between them negligible, and on second glance he realizes that Wayne’s hand is somewhere _under_ Stark’s suit jacket. Tony is laughing at something, his arm comes up and curls around Wayne’s neck and Steve turns away when they lean into each other.

Needless to say, the joint venture between Wayne Enterprises and Stark Industries is a raging success.


	6. Superhero

When they met, Steve doubted Tony would be an asset to their team. He even doubted he deserved the term “superhero” – a word he disliked anyway.

Everything Natasha’s report had said about Tony was true: Iron Man, yes, Tony Stark not recommended. And it seemed that everything Tony does only confirms it. He doesn’t seem to care about being respected or liked.

He gets used to Tony and his bad habits and hates them, but learns to be grateful for Iron Man. In a fight, Iron Man is reliable and a very good ally to have. Tony Stark seems to negate every definition of superhero, while Iron Man was the protector the people admired.

It takes Steve a while to look past the many mirrors Tony uses to deflect questions. He draws attention to himself at any cost, but prefers the tabloids ripping apart his worst moments and the important, the good things he accomplished to be ignored.

Steve thinks that he’ll never get why Tony is Iron Man beyond the fact that Iron Man is a role he plays.


	7. Alcoholic

Everyone knows that Tony drinks and everyone watches. There’s hardly a moment when Stark doesn’t have a drink in his hand, but nobody says anything. His drunken escapades are always good for a scandal, and the tabloids practically hunger to display another one in his life.

Any occasion is good enough: parties, of course; movie nights; while working, whether it was in the workshop or in his office; Tony drinks at any time: mornings, when other people ate toast or scrambled eggs, Tony drinks his breakfast instead; lunch, when for him it’s the perfect time for a glass of wine; afternoon when he starts on the scotch; evenings when he doesn’t even take breaks.

It’s an issue when Tony takes painkillers and Steve tries to figure out whether he should be having any. Tony doesn’t seem to care about such mundane things. The only thing he’s responsible about is drinking and driving.

“Be a dear, Cap, and hand me that whiskey over there,” Tony says. Evidently he’s past the point where he can still go and get it himself.

Pepper would just ignore Tony if he told her that. Rhodey would sigh, or laugh; whether he would do it, depended on the day. Steve isn’t sure in which category he falls. He doesn’t want to be in either of them.

He sits down across from Tony instead, ready for a longer discussion, and starts by saying:

“You shouldn’t drink so much.”

He doesn’t say it because he thinks he can heal people just by talking to them, but because he believes in trying.


End file.
